On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the sunwill be experienced by those of us in North America – the first to occur across continental U.S. over 38 years. In conjunction with the eclipse, NASA has planned many activities to celebrate this awesome event including an eclipse ballooning project. Eclipse ballooning teams from all of the country are developing science payloads to be tested and flown on the day of the eclipse. These teams will conduct their high altitude balloon (HAB) flights from ~25 locations across the total eclipse path, from Oregon to South Carolina (see map below) and will send live video and images to the NASA website!

While the cost of conducting HAB flights is low, there are interesting challenges presented by this highly collaborative effort. These challenges are broad – technical, political, administrative – and present an amazing hands-on learning opportunity for the students who participate (eclipse ballooning site). To learn more about the project please visit the main Eclipse 2017 Ballooning Project Website.

Live stream from the PA balloons! Scroll along the right side of the website and click on one of our teams (Temple, Pitt, or Gannon). Be sure to catch a glimpse of the eclipse for each teams’ perspective!

More than a 1000 students from Oregon to South Carolina are participating, launching over 70 high-altitude balloons along the path of the total solar eclipse to livestream the event. Project activities by students, mentors, faculty, and staff have far exceeded the National Space Grant Foundation’s resources to fund everyone. So, we need your help! The project has been wildly more popular than they had ever imagined and are asking for your help. In order to raise additional funds, the project has started a crowdfunding campaign. This experience has been pivotal for many of the students that are participating and they greatly appreciate your help. Please click here to visit the GoFundMe site and contribute!

Meet the Pennsylvania Teams

There are three teams from Pennsylvania participating in this project. Teams include faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students working together to design, build, test, and launch a successful ballooning mission to address their goals. Learn about each team below!

*The three Pennsylvania teams will launch their payloads from sites in Kentucky and Tennessee (orange markers)

Temple High Flyers Team on April 11th 2017

Temple High Flyers

Releasing balloon and payload

Successful launch

Ground Control

Recovery of payload

Launch Location: Trigg Country High School, Cadiz, KentuckyPurpose: To stream stable, targeted video of solar eclipse to the NASA Stream website for entirety of eventPayload: Learn about the specifics hereVideo:Ballooning Test V2 on April 11th, 2017 [Youtube]

Just before heading off with all the payload, balloon, and equipment on a pick-up truck heading to the Gannon football field for a tethered balloon launch practice (from the left: Alejandro Ferrero, Donovan Starks Kangxu Wang, Tenger Batjargal, Kaitie Babiarz, Maia MacKellar, and Stephen Karpinsky, and Dr. Lee taking photo) 2/23/17

Field test as a preparation for the 4/22/17 tethered balloon launch practice on the Friendship Green at Gannon campus. Here Donovan Starks is performing a final checking on our own RF900 Mhz-based balloon tracker.